The Pastor

[From Our Worth to Him: Devotions for Christian Worship by Mark Paustian. All rights reserved.]

“Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” – Acts 20:28

Martin Luther commented that people would surely “run their feet bloody” if they thought there was a place where they might go and hear God speak. But what if they were told of such a place, and what if they went and encountered only “a poor pastor baptizing and preaching”? They would shake their heads and say, “I have been duped. I see only a pastor.”

“As a matter of fact,” Luther continues, “it is not an angel or a hundred thousand angels but the Divine Majesty himself that is preaching there… one whose words and doctrines are not his own but those of our Lord and God” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 22). What about you? What do you see? These claims are shocking given the way we tend to judge by what we see, not to mention what we happen to like in a pastor.

This is why most Lutheran pastors “gown up” in the vestments of their office. Personally, I am not especially comfortable in the preacher’s robe. It covers my frailty and my commonness. It is as simple as that. It mutes my personality and disciplines my ego. I am, as someone has said, “just part of the furniture, the part that speaks.” Vestments are a symbol of borrowed authority. Here is one whom God has set apart. When faithfully expounding on an open Bible, the man speaks for Christ himself.

Through him my Lord speaks to me. And in that moment, no, he is not just one of us. When that truth settles into the pastor’s soul, he can become all too aware of his limitations and unworthiness. As a pastor, I know about wanting to shout to God’s people, “I’m just a guy!” All the more reason to don the garb though it is, metaphorically speaking, many sizes too big. To Jeremiah who cried, “I am only a child,” God said kindly but firmly, “Enough! I have put my words in your mouth.” Pastors do not share their own precious thoughts. They rise to speak things before which knees must bend.

To be clear: just as the church remains a queen no matter how she dresses up in worship, so too the called servant of the Word remains so in any clothing. We respect a tradition measured in centuries, but we write no ecclesiastical rule about what pastors wear. I do not decide for another man what his pride may require. The gospel in Word and sacrament is the sine qua non—the “without which not.”

And it goes without saying that it is a good thing when a pastor wants to shout, “I’m just like you!” If he is wounded, it is a good wound. Under the cross he has learned everything he really knows about Jesus. My God does not squander such a man. People like him do not make themselves. Meanwhile, the pedestal the pastor stands on feels like an orange crate ready to collapse at any second. Sinners fall. It’s what they do.

Kierkegaard [a Danish theologian and philosopher] wrote, “What good would it do me to construct a world in which I did not live, but only held up to the view of others?” He refers to that exquisitely beautiful “world” of Christian theology in all its immense extravagance. Pastor, do not only display it to us in all its grandeur and grace. You too must live in that world. Your soul too must vibrate to the song that is Christ-for-you.

I know, Pastor, that if I were to present myself to you as a broken man, grieving over myself, you would love nothing more than to take all that Christ is and all he has won and pour it freely out on me. God has taught you in the Spirit’s school to translate theology into actual life. You have—praise Jesus—more than 45 seconds of things to say about the cross. You know how to overwhelm me with the Good News as if my life depended on it. It does. But, Pastor, do you see? It is for you too.

You must “comfort with the comfort you have received” (2 Corinthians 1:4, adapted). That’s how this works.

It is said that we do not understand a single thought of Luther unless we understand it first as a thought about the forgiveness of sins. My pastors are like that. I see something wonderful come over them as they warm to their true task—they tell me again that God accepts sinners for Jesus’ sake.

What good, then, does it do when pastors lose their patience? Pastor, when we disappoint you and are the cause of that heavy sigh, remember to blend your prayers for us with those of Jesus. The Church already has an Accuser. Pastor, that is not your job. Be honest with us and speak the hard truth about us, but do so in tender mercy, to bring again the resurrection that emerges from our daily crucifixion.

For that matter, no good can come if we, the rest of us, allow the pastor’s life to become a burden too heavy to bear. Do not let him carry the weight of the world or carry on with a vague sense of the disapproval of God or of God’s church. Do not let crushing expectations, though they may mostly be his own, rob his joy and resilience. Do not look for a dynamic CEO or ask that worship be a marketable attraction. It is enough that our pastors treat us to the grace of God. It is enough to have them say, “I forgive you all your sins,” knowing that the God who alone can forgive says, “That goes for me.”

If your pastor is a jar of clay, this is just as it must be. If the ministry were about promoting the man, he’d better be “all that.” No weakness had better show through. No chinks in the armor, please. But because the ministry exists to exalt the sufficiency of Christ, pastors are free to be themselves. They can dare to be sinners. Their brokenness and limitation, their clay jarness, is, in a word, necessary.

When the grace of God rests on the nothingness of the messenger—I see only a pastor—and the apparent nothingness of his gospel—I see only bread and wine, water and Word—we can know that every good thing that has been done among us has been done by God.

What I on earth have lived and taught be all your life and teaching; so shall my kingdom’s work be wrought and honored in your preaching. (CW 557:10)

TO THINK ABOUT:

What has God done for you through the pastors who have served you?

PRAYER:

Dear Jesus, make the work of all pastors deeply satisfying to them as they dare to represent you. Hold them lovingly like stars in the palm of your hand. Help us do no less. Amen.

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As you think of ways to show your pastor you appreciate him, consider purchasing him an e-gift card for theological books and resources of his choice from Northwestern Publishing House.